Disharmony
by Starchild524
Summary: On the bumpy road of their quest, Shari reveals to Irsen one thing she cannot reconcile to the life of a mage.


Author's note: shoot. This came out far more suggestive of chemistry than I meant it to. _Far_ more, which is bad, because I am really determined to avoid any sympathy between these characters. Don't take this too seriously; I need to learn to suppress my ship-building tendencies.

This is a companion to "Yladar's Heir;" it would be a later section in that fic if I developed it into an epic, which I haven't. This one has Shari (Daine and Numair's daughter) and Irsen at some point on their quest.

If you haven't read about my OC Shari before, which you probably haven't, I've done the Gifted-wildmage taboo. For a less Sueish Salmalín Jr., read up on Candice Velasco's projection of Sarralyn (Desperate Times, Last Chance for Cake for Ninety-Eight Miles). In Tortall fics, I'm interested in magical power and the baggage that comes with it, as in "Ravenpeak" and "Wild."

"Plighted" means promised/sworn, as in "troth plight" (promised in marriage). "Lady Tongue," by the way, is a name Benedick calls Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. The rest is mine, though Tortall, wild magic, and Shari's origins belong to Tamora Pierce.

By the way, mass posting is due to my connection being down while I wrote a bunch.

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Disharmony

Irsen dug a bundle of provisions out of their packs and grimaced. Mold had gotten a grip on one of the cheese blocks, and might already have spread to other items. He made a mental note to reinforce the preservative spells on their food supply. He set some branches on a bare patch of ground and turned to look for more.

Dark crimson flames roared to life beside him, scorching his left elbow and ear. He jumped back, but the fire had by then receded to six-inch flames crackling innocently. Ellesharia Salmalín rode out of the nearby elder grove on her piebald mare, looking consummately serene. "Something the matter, Irsen?"

He snorted and sat back in the brittle grass that shivered in the wind. "Showy, aren't you," he muttered. "I should have known."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll get your chance," Shari replied, dismounting. She gave the mare a pat and, not for the first time, he wondered grudgingly what silent conversation she and the animal might be holding. "And Irsen, you might want to know I found the remains of a warding spell a hundred paces east of here. Maybe six weeks old."

He made a disgusted face. "What kind of half-witted fool of a mage - besides the two of us - would travel this godsforsaken wilderness?"

She shrugged, pulling off her gauntlets to rub her hands together. "You tell me. The half-witted fool might have been looking for the same thing we are."

Irsen shook his head. "Impossible. No one had laid eyes on the texts for centuries when I unearthed them."

"Excellent. That you're so confident, that is; I can't say the same for myself." Shari set a portable cooking stand over the fire and placed a pot on it.

"You know, Salmalín" - he poured water from a skin into the pot - "you happen to have an overly suspicious nature."

"So you've told me," she said.

"So I think."

"I can't imagine why."

He snorted. "Spare me your shrewd investigation, my Lady Tongue. We have a bargain."

"That we do." She upended a small sack of barley over the pot. "But, if you can tolerate me defending myself, I wasn't always overly suspicious." Shari mockingly stressed the words he had used. "Though I do learn from unfortunate experiences, you could say - instead of just charging ahead with unbated confidence."

"Your assertion amuses me. By all means, go on."

She made a gracious half-bow. "Unless Fate has pampered you since birth, which is unlikely, you may have noticed that life brings less-than-pleasant interactions with other people. I've had enough of these that I no longer tend to assume others have good intentions."

Irsen furrowed his brow in thought. "You'll have to forgive me, but… I'm not amazed that you've had unpleasant interactions."

She smiled mirthlessly. "I don't forgive you, and you obviously have no wish for forgiveness. Just don't rush to assume everyone else shuns me like the viper. I may have had disappointments, but I've had better luck with some than with you."

"Oh?"

A moment passed silently.

"I was plighted once." Shari poked at the fire with a branch, though as far as he could tell it was a pointless alternative to stoking the flames magically. "After a number of failures, too. I met him through work - he was visiting to see the magical anomalies Tortall has a reputation for, and… he stayed. We _almost _made it, I think. Most men seem to have trouble with a woman mage, or at least a powerful one." She spoke mechanically, as though reporting on someone else's life. "I thought he was different. Maybe we worked out a modus vivendi at first because he was so intrigued, and I had a lot to teach him. But after a while it changed. He got so obviously uncomfortable seeing me work that we began avoiding each other, and when we were together I made an effort to not use magic. It was ridiculous, walking on eggshells around one another.

"And one morning he was gone. He left a note." Shari paused thoughtfully. "I think it was inevitable, but that was when I realized that - no matter what I did, just by being who I am, I'll always be at war. With myself, with others." She leaned forward to stir the porridge, and grinned crookedly. "More than you wanted to know, eh?"

"And more than you wanted to tell," he suggested.

Shari shrugged. "I really don't care. You weren't planning to sell the information, were you?"

He tapped a finger on his jaw in exaggerated contemplation. "I can't say I have a market."

"No." She laughed shortly, then stood, hands on her hips, breathing in the damp air. The blunted light from an overcast sky was dimming. She frowned. "People are scare here."

"As far as I know, it's just you and me -"

"No. I mean the People - animals. They've practically evacuated the place."

"I can't blame them," Irsen said delicately.

She turned to scrutinize him. "Do you feel something?"

"Pardon?"

"Something strange about this area. It might be magecraft, or just… I don't know."

"I feel nothing distinctly magical, but it could be our disharmony of character."

"Hah." Shari sat down again. "If it is magic, perhaps there are traces of a spell making me loose-tongued."

"And if not?" he asked flatly.

She shook her head. "I can't begin to imagine."


End file.
